Fighting With My Sewing Machine

Sewing the chair

I had a fight with my sewing machine today.

I won’t repeat the horrid things I yelled at it.  I was so frustrated, I even pulled the piece of fabric I was sewing on out of it and threw it at the machine.

Then thankfully I had enough sense to walk away.  Jon had texted me a few minutes earlier that he had a fresh-baked cookie from our neighbor Barbara for me.  So I took the opportunity to eat it and settle down.

I hate getting as upset as I was. It used to happen more often, but I’m better at keeping calm than I used to be when I was younger.

I was really into what I was doing.  I’ve been wanting to turn the photo of the chicks on the pink chair in the barn that I took a while ago into a thread drawing for a potholder.   I finally got to it today but then my sewing machines weren’t cooperating.

First, my Viking machine, which I was using, started doing that thing again where the thread cutter randomly starts cutting while I’m sewing.  I blame myself for that.  I planned on taking the machine to get cleaned, hoping that would take care of the problem, over a month ago and never did.  (Now it’s out of my studio and in the dining room.  I’ll take it to be cleaned this week)

It was when the bobbin in my reliable old Brother sewing machine kept getting jammed, that I lost it.

I’m sure that was my fault too.  I was probably threading the machine wrong or something. By the time I got it working, I practiced a little more but had no energy to actually start making a potholder.  I think a part of me knew I’d screw something up if I tried anyway. I wanted to leave on a good note.

There was still some time before dinner so I poured myself a glass of wine and sat outside on the stone wall by the dahlia garden.  I watched the barn swallows scoop up insects from the air and marveled at the Red-Winged Blackbirds as they landed sideways on the tall thin wildflowers growing in the marsh.

After a while, Kitty and Anne came along.  They sat in the grass across from me on the other side of the garden.  I sipped my wine and they cleaned their feathers.  I think they enjoyed my company, I know I enjoyed theirs.

I did apologize to my sewing machine for yelling at it.  So tomorrow I’ll do a couple of practice drawings of the chicks to warm up then make a few potholders.

By then today’s fight will be behind us and we can start over.

My Practice drawings for my Kitty and Anne Potholder
My photo of Anne and Kitty on the pink chair in the barn.

 

5 thoughts on “Fighting With My Sewing Machine

  1. It’s funny how you describe your relationship with your sewing machine – I sometimes have a similar experience with knitting. I have started on a shawl and I swear I have started 10-12 times on it already not gotten past the first section. When I found I get to a problem I try to calmly unravel it, then let it be because I will inevitable screw it up if I try to knit that row again immediately. I walk away and come back when I am in the right mindset. I swear the Knitting Goddess is trying to teach me something and I try to listen and learn from it.

    1. It does feel like it’s coming from a greater power KJ. I tend to think this is just a part of any creative endeavor. And the goddesses and gods, seem to always have a hand in it.

  2. I swear at my computer a lot. But when I find myself screaming “hurry up!” at the microwave during the few seconds it takes to heat up a cup of coffee, I know it’s time to chill out. And maybe switch to decaf … And maybe have a cookie…

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